Shivraj Singh Chouhan to Suresh Gopi: Meet the ministers in Modi govt 3.0
CS Pemmasani, TDP
Richest candidate of 2024, now minister
Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani made headlines soon after the Telugu Desam Party fielded him from Guntur after Jayadev Galla, the two-term MP from 2014, announced his retirement from active politics. Pemmasani, a doctor, was in the news again when he filed his nomination. In his affidavit, he stated that his income was ~5,785 crore, making him the richest candidate in the Lok Sabha polls. After graduating in medicine from Osmania Medical College, Pemmasani studied in the United States and served as an attending physician at Johns Hopkins University and Sinai Hospital. He is the founder and CEO of UWorld, a test prep company. He defeated Kilari Venkata Rosaiah of Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party by 344,695 votes from Guntur
Ravneet S Bittu, BJP
NDA’s Punjab bet leads to victory in loss
Ravneet Singh Bittu, a two-term Lok Sabha MP from Ludhiana, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2024 elections. When Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was busy with the Bengal Assembly polls in 2021, Bittu briefly led the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha. Bittu, grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, is a rare member of the Council of Ministers who has been inducted despite losing in the LS polls. He must be elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha within six months. At least five of the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MPs were elected to the Lok Sabha. This would open a vacancy for Bittu. Though the BJP lost in all thirteen constituencies, the party increased its vote share to 18.56 percent in Punjab. At several places, BJP candidates faced protests from farmers.
Bittu’s loss to Congress’ Amrinder Singh Raja Warring was a narrow margin of 20,942. His entry into the Union Council of Ministers signals the BJP’s long-term interest in expanding its electoral footprint in Punjab.
Suresh Gopi,BJP
Modi’s Kerala trump card scores big
Suresh Gopi, a popular actor and politician, achieved a historic victory for the BJP in Kerala by winning the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat, a first for the party. Gopi defeated Communist Party of India leader VS Sunilkumar in a three-way battle by 74,686 votes, with senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan coming third. Earlier this year in January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed at Guruvayur’s Sreekrishna Temple in Thrissur, clad in a white mundu and veshti, to attend the wedding of Gopi’s daughter Bhagya. Modi participated in her ‘Kanyadaanam’ ritual. At the peak of his film career, Gopi rivaled Mammooty and Mohanlal in terms of box office figures. In 2019, Gopi finished third but secured a respectable vote share of 28.2 percent. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha and his term ended in 2022.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP
Four-time CM prepares for new role
Madhya Pradesh’s longest-serving chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had led the BJP to a famous victory in the December 2023 assembly elections on the back of his government’s welfare schemes, especially the ‘Laadli Bahna’. It had surprised many that the BJP replaced Chouhan with Mohan Yadav as MP CM. Chouhan beat Vidisha with a
huge margin of 821,408 votes. The BJP won all 29 seats in Parliament. On Sunday, Chouhan became Union Cabinet minister for the first time in his over three-decade political career. His induction into the Union Cabinet was obvious after Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised him at a rally in Madhya Pradesh before the Lok Sabha elections.
Jitan Ram ManjhI, HAM (secular)
An old Nitish ally makes the choice
At 79 years old, Jitan Ram Manjhi, former chief minister of Bihar, is probably the oldest member of the Union Council of Ministers. Manjhi, a member of Bihar’s Mahadalit community, was a loyalist of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and had a brief feud with him in the run-up to the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections. In the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, Manjhi’s party had an alliance with the BJP-led NDA. He won the Gaya seat with 101,812 against the Rashtriya Janata Dal. Manjhi’s political journey took a dramatic turn when he was unexpectedly appointed Chief Minister in 2014 by Nitish Kumar, who had resigned after a disastrous Lok Sabha election. Kumar saw Manjhi as a caretaker. But the humble Manjhi soon shattered those expectations.
Jitan Ram ManjhI, HAM (secular)
Ministers
1. Narendra Modi
2. Rajnath Singh
3. Amit Shah
4. Nitin Gadkari
5. JP Nadda
6. Shivaraj Singh Chouhan
7. Nirmala Sitharaman
8. S Jaishankar
9. Manohar Lal Khattar
10. HD Kumaraswamy
11. Piyush Goyal
12. Dharmendra Pradhan
13. Jitan Ram Manjhi
14. Rajiv Ranjan Singh aka Lalan Singh
15. Sarbananda Sonowal
16. Dr Virendra Kumar
17. Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu
18. Pralhad Joshi
19. Jual Oram
20. Giriraj Singh
21. Ashwini Vaishnaw
22. Jyotiraditya Scindia
23. Bhupender Yadav
24. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
25. Annapurna Devi
26. Kiren Rijiju
27. Hardeep Singh Puri
28. Mansukh Mandaviya
29. G Kishan Reddy
30. Chirag Paswan
31. CR Patil
Ministers of State with independent responsibility
1. Rao Inderjit Singh
2. Jitendra Singh
3. Arjun Ram Meghwal
4. Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav
5. Jayant Chaudhary
Ministers of State
1. Jitin Prasada
2. Shripad Naik
3. Pankaj Chaudhary
4. Krishan Pal Gurjar
5. Ramdas Athawale
6. Ram Nath Thakur
7. Nityanand Rai
8. Anupriya Patel
9. V Somanna
10. Dr. Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani
11. SP Singh Baghel
12. Shobha Karandlaje
13. Kirti Vardhan Singh
14. B. L. Verma
15. Shantanu Thakur
16. Suresh Gopi
17. L Murugan
18. Ajay Tamta
19. Bandi Sanjay Kumar
20. Kamlesh Paswan
21. Bhagirath Chaudhary
22. Satish Chandra Dubey
23. Sanjay Seth
24. Ravneet Singh Bittu
25. Durga Das Uikey
26. Raksha Khadse
27. Sukanta Majumdar
28. Savitri Thakur
29. Tokhan Sahu
30. Rajbhushan Chaudhary
31. Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma
32. Hard Malhotra
33. Nimuben Jayantibhai Bambhaniya
34. Murlidhar Mohol
35. George Kurian
36. Pabitra Margherita
First print: June 10, 2024 | 12:51 pm IST